[coastie]

A Driver for a Company I drove for did a really good job hauling 53,000 LBS from NJ to Ga. No tickets at all. Problemhe had when he arrived at the customer in Atlanta, the trailer folded inwards in half. Loaded down with Rolls of Paper.

[Mr. Ford95]

I saw a truck hauling mulch(unpackaged) and the trailer broke in the middle. Apparently, whomever loaded it with the excavator was packing it down and packing it down to stuff as much as possible in the trailer. Got so much in, it somehow caused the trailer to fold as the driver pulled off from a stoplight and hit a slight dip in the road. Mulch is light as heck, so how that happened is beyond me, sounds like the excavator might have pushed a little too hard in the middle and broke the trailer right then and nobody noticed.

Hauling overloaded is just not worth it anymore when you get busted. For what your paying out in fines and equipment damage that might occur to what your being paid for that extra, it doesn't make it worth it. Sometimes though you cannot help it but should try to avoid being overweight.

[CoastalDefender]

Oh, I'll toss my story in too.

About 4 weeks ago, I had a 130mi load of Spruce (I'm a Log Truck driver, formerly OTR). We get paid by weight and distance travelled. This was a pretty long run, so I really overloaded.

I'm licensed for 88,000 gvw, and spruce is pretty heavy, I didn't have to shorten up, and there was really just a load-and-a-half out there in the woods. instead of letting someone else run off with a load later on, I asked the Shovel Op (guy who loads me) to really pack it on.

I got it up to 120,000gvw before I told him that was about enough.

The thing about spruce is it looks like a regular load when you're really packed to the gills because its so heavy.

Had ZERO weigh stations to pass, but there was a fueling location DOT liked to setup the portable scales along the way. Figured I'd just take my chances.

Well, I get up to where the fuel stop is, and sure enough, they have out the scales.

Well, this is a two-lane US Highway, and I keep going, pretending I didn't see them open.

The State DOT guy jumps out after me and caught up in about 3 miles.

He stops me and checks out all my stuff. Current, all good. Then he asks to check my onboard scales, and I had *just* ripped out the power wires to it. "Sorry officer, they broke this morning when I kicked it on accident, so I have been loading real light until I can get them fixed this evening at the shop."

Sounds reasonable, so he tells me to follow him and we'll find a place where I can pull around and go back to the fuel stop.

We're headed out for about 30min (VERY rural wooded area, no good areas to turn around), and he gets a Priority call on the radio, so he CB's me to finish my run, and get those scales fixed right away.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO lucky, as just recently they've been arresting drivers who are 20,000lbs over gross.


Not too bad for my first post here, eh? 100% pure self-incrimination. :lol:

[rcso]

lemma guess you're from Chicago? That accent is just flowing from that post.

[silvan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ford95

I saw a truck hauling mulch(unpackaged) and the trailer broke in the middle.

Me too! Happened right in front of my house, when I was at home. I heard this godawful rending metal sound, and looked up to see WTF it was. There was a chip wagon in front of my house, blocking my driveway, completely bellied out, with a load of mulch spewing out everywhere. It was so bad his drives got lifted a foot off the road, and he was completely SOL. I asked him if he was overweight, and he said "Naw, I only got 20,000 pounds on. That's what they told me at the scales."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

What amazed me was that this guy's drives were down to the belts. What a POS of a truck. I've driven with some problems before, but dammit driver, I'm not going to ride on tires like those. They can keep the truck. Especially if they want me to gross 120,000 pounds.

[Larry Heyns]

In the 1970s, Key Line operated strickly legal. I was dispatched to pick up a trailer loaded with miscelaneous at Hare Cartage in Detroit and haul it to Milwaukee. The manifest totaled only 36,000 lbs., so I assumed there was no need to check the axle weights. The scale master at Grass Lake told me that the trailer tandems were overweight. I slid the tandems to the rear, and they were still 2,000 lbs. overweight. So, the scale master began to copy the information from my license, registration, bill of lading, etc. onto a scratch pad. I asked him whether I was getting a ticket. He said, "Oh, no. We cannot write a ticket on this one." And he let me go. I know that he planned to use the info to get a steak dinner from our safety man.

I dodged the New Buffalo and Michigan City scales, and took the overloaded trailer to our Chicago terminal. We unloaded two gaylord boxes of castings off the tailgate, and looked for a bill of lading matching those boxes in the manilla envelope of bills from Hare Cartage. There was no bill of lading for those heavy gaylord boxes. I continued on my way to Milwaukee, and have no idea what the Chicago terminal manager did with those boxes.

[mozzi]

Back in 90 or 91 (???) while pulling a flatbed I was dispatched to pick up a couple of partials. The first P/U was in Valley Ne. I deadheaded to Valley and loaded a bunch of concrete forms. My next P/U would be St. louis, Mo. All was to be delivered to some outfit N.E. of Atlanta, Ga. ASAP.

These conctete forms were not new but, used and as such were covered in concrete. I asked the man loading me "how much does this stuff weigh"? I was guaranteed that it could not exceed 30,000 # because I was only taking 1/3 of the entire load... and when the forms were new they had been shipped in on 1 truck.

I explained that I had a fairly good eye for estimating weight being loaded onto my rig and that I thought that this stuff weighed a lot more than the 30,000 # as claimed.

He finished loading my rig in the late afternoon, guaranteeing me that I was "WAY UNDER". I strapped down and headed for St. Louis, Mo. for the next P/U in the morning.

I had just hired on with this company a couple of weeks ago. After driving around Omaha on I-29 S. and merging with I-80 E. I decided to pull into the Sapp Bros. and put on fuel. While fueling, I ran into the owner of the company, (he still drove on occasion), who asked to buy me dinner. Well, being distracted by his presence, I forgot to scale out after fueling. It was late when he and I parted and I finally started out for Gateway.

The scales in Rock Port, Mo were closed and I was just easing along S. on I-29. I started to notice that the truck was really pulling hard in these mild, rolling hills. I actually had to downshift on one hill and I knew that something was "not as it was supposed to be".

I carefully made my way across Missouri to the Flying Hook just E. of Jonesburg, Mo. I camped out here. When I woke up I imediatly pulled around to the Hook scales and told the gal on the speaker that I refused to pay for anything if it wasn't legal... just joking with her 8)
She said that I'd better come in and check this out because, it sure wasn't legal. I still had another P/U to make in Gateway today. I weighed 90,000 #s.

I called dispatch and explained the problem... and of course... he said that I couldn't weigh that much BECAUSE I STILL HAD TO MAKE ANOTHER P/U. Duh ! why did'nt I think of that !!!

Anyway I went into St. Louis and, through a little coersion, convinced them to "REMOVE" a certian amount of weight to make me legal. Also, dispatch had given (suggested even) me permission to be as legal as I WANTED TOO The folks in Gateway didn't like it but, oh well. I rolled out of there around 65,000 # or so and delivered as scheduled in Georgia the following morning.